Re: Plurality

On Thursday, April 17, 2003, at 11:42  AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 17, 2003 at 08:25:31AM -0600, Dirk Elzinga wrote:
>> On Thursday, April 17, 2003, at 04:53  AM, Peter Bleackley wrote:
> [snip]
>> In Miapimoquitch, number is a category which marks predicates rather
>> than their arguments, so there is some ambiguity when confronted with
>> a
>> sentence like:
>>
>> wankikipe
>> wa= n-  RED-  kipe
>> 1=  TR- PAUC- poke
>>
>> (TR 'transitive', PAUC 'paucal number')
>>
>> This can mean any of the following:
>>
>> "I poked (a few of) them."
>> "We [=a few of us] poked him."
>> "We [=a few of us] poked (a few of) them."
>> "I poked him a few times."
>>
>> In each of these interpretations the idea is that poking took place a
>> few times; context is generally sufficient to disambiguate. In
>> addition
>> to paucal, there are also distributive and collective numbers.
> [snip]
>
> This is very interesting. So potentially there are three (possibly
> more)
> possible number markings on a verb: (1) number agreeing with subject
> (he
> says, they say); (2) number agreeing with object (he hits a man vs. he
> hits several men), (3) number indicating plurality of actions (he hits
> him
> many times).
No. In Miapimoquitch grammar, number marking only means (3), and
predicates are only marked once for number; the interpretation of
number marking is ambiguous in the ways given earlier. So if I poked a
few of them, then poking happened a few times with a first person agent
and a third person patient. If a few of us poked him, then poking
happened a few times, again with a first person agent and a third
person patient. If I poked him a few times, then poking again happened
a a few times with a first person agent and a third person patient. All
that matters to the grammar is the number of poking events.

> Seems like (3) is a good candidate for addition to Ebisedian. :-)
Be my guest!

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie